Ellis: Budget vote produces the usual

Plenty to like or dislike about any compromise bill

Dec. 15, 2013

There’s a memorable scene from “Star Wars” where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker are entering the port city of Mos Eisley in search of a pilot who can smuggle them to safety. As they prepare to enter the city, Obi-Wan warns Luke about Mos Eisley: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

It’s a line that would aptly describe Washington, D.C., our version of Mos Eisley. And if Washington is Mos Eisley, then surely the U.S. House of Representatives is the famous Mos Eisley Cantina, the colorful bar where villains and lowlifes go to fight and get intoxicated.

Don’t get me wrong — there are some dignified people elected to the House, including divorce lawyers, bankers and used-car salesmen. But because of its larger membership drawn from a number of gerrymandered districts, it seems that the House harbors more individuals who are apt to deposit bribes in their freezers, take bawdy pictures with their camera phones or suffer from a mental illness.

Until last week, the House had done nothing all that memorable in terms of legislative achievement, unless you count shutting down the government in October. Yet amazingly, the House of Reprobates voted overwhelmingly to approve a two-year budget for the federal government.

It was a rare moment of bipartisanship. Both Democrats and Republicans admitted that the budget stunk, based on their ideological principles. Democrats didn’t get an extension of long-term unemployment benefits, which has become a grand new welfare program. Republicans didn’t get a balanced budget or even the promise of a balanced budget in their lifetime.

Outside interest groups are understandably pouty. The left complains it didn’t get more investment in government programs via tax increases on the rich. The right argues that the budget isn’t austere enough. So nobody’s happy, other than the representatives worried about being blamed for another government shutdown.

A few hours before last week’s vote in the House, Rep. Kristi Noem took her weekly call with reporters. She said she wasn’t sure how she’d vote. But she also floated out the code words that presaged what would turn out to be a yes vote later in the day. The bill, she said, wasn’t “perfect,” which is something a politician simply must say before voting in favor of controversial legislation. And she focused on the plight of the military. Without the budget deal, she said, automatic spending cuts scheduled to go into place would hit the military hard. The budget deal would avert those cuts.

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“I’m looking at the fact that we’ve got some problems funding our readiness, that we want our men and women, that we want them to have the best equipment when we ask them to defend our country,” she said.

Indeed. We’ve got the finest military in the world. One that can crush our enemies and provide political cover.

So here’s where it gets interesting. The Senate will vote on the budget this week. Actually, there will be two votes: one for cloture, which requires 60 votes, and then one on the budget proposal passed by the House. There might be enough Republicans to vote for cloture, but few if any are likely to vote in favor of the budget. Democrats, if they hold together, don’t need Republican votes in the Senate to pass the bill.

For Republicans, it’s a tale of two chambers. As the majority party in the House, the GOP has the burden to govern. Especially after it failed in October. As the minority party in the Senate, the GOP can vote against everything, assured that it will pass anyway.

Keep in mind, it was Republican Sen. Ted Cruz who led House Republicans to the Kool-Aid tent this fall, making them believe they could get Obamacare defunded. Instead, they looked like fools. Most decided not to play that game again.

Sen. Tim Johnson appears to be a lock as a yes vote. And Sen. John Thune, who said last week that he has “serious concerns” about the bill, appears to be a lock as a no vote. Republicans in the Senate, particularly those who are thinking about running for president in 2016, are under pressure from conservative activist groups to oppose the budget deal.

That would put Noem and Thune — the two Republicans — on opposite sides of the issue, something that hasn’t happened very often. There’s safety in numbers, and by going in opposite directions, they leave themselves open to criticism. If he does vote against the measure, Thune will do so because it doesn’t do enough to close the deficit. So, if it doesn’t do enough to close the deficit, critics might ask, why is Noem voting for it?

Noem already has said she voted for the deal because it will fund military readiness. If Thune votes no, what, critics might ask, does that say about his fidelity to the nation’s military?

The reality is, you can always find reasons to vote for a big spending bill, and you can always find reasons to vote against. These bills are never “perfect,” and they always can elicit “serious concerns.”